The Da Vinci code

[inked]

The gnostic cults based their behaviours on misunderstandings of gnosis: to the pure all things are pure became antinomianism. That is the undergirding of the reference to Gnosticism and orgiastic behaviours.

She seems to be arguing that in the end Magdalene is a Great Mother surrogate. If your prefer to say that Gaia mutters through Magdalene's grave, I think you'd have the complaint pretty accurately.

She nowhere says Brown needs an exorcism, merely that he has constructed a gnostic primer towards antinomianism under the guise of a novel/mystery. While she does point out the distortions, half-truths, and outright fabrications in relation to facticity, that's merely reporting them as such.

Frankly, if you scan many chats like the 'Moot, you'd be amazed at some of the comments which say outright that there must be something to Brown's presentation because he seems to back up all his "facts" so well. These comments come from younger folk with no background to grasp the point this reviewer makes.

One remark does always surface, frequently in your variant, that those poor catholics are "forced to believe". If by that you mean they are well-informed about their beliefs and able to identify the Adversary, I would agree. However if you mean that catholics are automatically illiberal, I would disagree.

Someone is painting with brush he decries, methinks!

[sun-star]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

I could have, though. LOL! Teabag indeed. Do you think he was riffing on Lionel Trilling's name? Trying for that English academic stuffiness cliche?

Some people have pointed out that the name is an anagram of Leigh and Baigent, two of the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which perhaps accounts for it being the most ridiculously unconvincing name for an English aristocrat ever invented

[Elfhelm]

Originally Posted by inked

The gnostic cults based their behaviours on misunderstandings of gnosis: to the pure all things are pure became antinomianism. That is the undergirding of the reference to Gnosticism and orgiastic behaviours.

She seems to be arguing that in the end Magdalene is a Great Mother surrogate. If your prefer to say that Gaia mutters through Magdalene's grave, I think you'd have the complaint pretty accurately.

She nowhere says Brown needs an exorcism, merely that he has constructed a gnostic primer towards antinomianism under the guise of a novel/mystery. While she does point out the distortions, half-truths, and outright fabrications in relation to facticity, that's merely reporting them as such.

Frankly, if you scan many chats like the 'Moot, you'd be amazed at some of the comments which say outright that there must be something to Brown's presentation because he seems to back up all his "facts" so well. These comments come from younger folk with no background to grasp the point this reviewer makes.

One remark does always surface, frequently in your variant, that those poor catholics are "forced to believe". If by that you mean they are well-informed about their beliefs and able to identify the Adversary, I would agree. However if you mean that catholics are automatically illiberal, I would disagree.

Someone is painting with brush he decries, methinks!

Antinomianism, for all us three syllable maximum word users, is the belief that God's grace exempts you from earthly laws. To leap from such a statement, which is not in any Gnostic Gospel I have read, to sex orgies is just typical smear tactics.

Dogma is what, again? Required beliefs, right? I was raised Catholic. Nobody can water down Catholicism for me. I know it when I see it. The liberal wing of Catholicism is a thin veneer on the oldest and most conservative organization in the world. The last vote for Pope wasn't even close. The lone liberal in the running was barely acknowleged. Instead we get this guy who has to make a visit to a death camp because he has some serious karma to pay for.

The voice of a demon speaking through one is not the voice of Gaia or anyone else. It's a charge of posession.

But she doesn't speak ill of an honorable woman, unlike the Screwball guy, in fact she calls her a saint.

But why don't we actually discuss these "facts"? Why is it mostly watering down. For instance, all I've heard so far is some revisionist attitude about the NUMBER of women murdered by the Church. What possible motive could there be to revise the casualty figures? Eh? A white-wash?

I still hold the Church accountable for the destruction of Sappho's poetry. I can forgive their silly paradisic fantasies. Everybody has those. And I can forgive them all the poor people they ripped off to build huge "temples" to their greed. But depriving humanity of its first great lyric poet, that's just... I don't know. It makes me sick to think about it.

So as far as I'm concerned, the Church has done a VAST amount of misrepresentation on its own. Just think of all the witches with crooked noses on brooms we see every Halloween. They have a lot of nerve whining about being misrepresented in reverse. That's like a white guy who couldn't make it into a college whining about racial quotas. If we were to take all the falsehoods told by the Church about pagans and compare them to the details of this book (trying to change 5 million murdered women into 40 thousand, for instance), I am certain the Church has about a thousand times more factual distortion to amend for.

[inked]

Elfhelm,

You seem to need to vent regarding your former Roman Catholicism. Vent away.

However, Gnostic "christianity" was not ever normative Christianity and we have the opposition to it in John's Gospel and in the Letters of John from circa 90-100AD.

The fact that the gnostic gospels do not mention sexual orgies is not at issue. It is gnostic teaching and behaviour as a result of the erroneous beliefs that are being discussed. That's not smearing. It's reportage. In fact, the textual discoveries have not impugned the quotations by which these things were known in the Church Fathers before the documents were discovered. If the Fathers quoted correctly (and this is substantiated) why should I doubt that their descriptions of the teachings and behaviours of these "gnostic gospel holders" were inaccurate? The whole Tradition versus heresy and schism bits can get drawn into this. Reliable reportage versus modern speculation and eisegesis - Hmmmm?- I'll take the reliable, thank you.

You seem to have held the review from 2004 in mind for a long time. Are you sure you are over it, or would you like to discuss it some more or vent some more?

A voice speaking through a grave is possessing whom, exactly?

What attribution of ill are you specifically saying "Screwball" made precisely? And, as I recall, it was the Church that first called Mary of Magdala a Saint (after her Lord and God made her a saint - see her confession in John at the tomb when Jesus calls her name and she says "Rabbouni" which is equivalent to Thomas' "My Lord and my God" and precedes Tom's adoration). See John 20:16 et alia inter alia.

As to numbers and whitewash, there seems to be orders of magnitude involved as in thousands versus million. Minor quibble to communists and neognostics, I suppose, the former to suppress, the latter to inflate. Sort of like the difference between inflationa and hyperinflation for the Big Bang Theorists, eh? But there is a difference. We deflate the number of martyrs for the church and Christ while exorbinately inflating other allegations of murder by the Church. I fail to see the application as equitable.

Sorry about Sappho's poetry, but if it was all destroyed exactly on what do you base your paens of praise? Reports of the excellence of her work? Surviving fragments in other authors? And if the latter two, how do you square your acceptance of those data with the rejection of the Fathers reports on gnostic behaviours and teachings? Does whitewash work differently for poetry?

Alas, I think you confuse cultural imagery of witches as church authorized. Are you suggesting that Cotton Mather had the imprimature of the Holy See?
(Pardon my laughter.) Cultural imagey or witches has been quite variable even within the western civilization tradition. Lots of really beautiful women have been witches. Personally, I thought Tilda was rather attractive in an icy, not to say frigid, portrayal of witchery. And thus CS Lewis gives the lie to the ugly witch theory in the 20th Century.

And, while I appreciate your final sentence about church distortions arises from your venting, facts might be more useful to substantiate the atrociousness you attribute by belief rather than data. Such a belief is religious in its origin and suffers from magic thinking as stated: "I want it to be true so it must be true." Rather baldfacedly too, at that.

Shall we mince some more? I am having fun, are you?

[Elfhelm]

oh maaaaan... I could do this all day, but I can't get paid for it.

OK, I need some facts here. Which Church Fathers actually said that the Gnostics practiced orgiastic rituals? I haven't read The Refutation of all Heresies or Against All Heresies, but I can find the eTexts.

I must point out that I am aware of Bachannalias occurring at the same point in time, but they were pagan rituals, not Gnostic.

[Elfhelm]

And Sappho was a priestess, that's why it's relevant. Her Marriage Ceremony, presumably a large multi-media work involving dance, music, and poetry, was considered one of her greatest pieces. But of course, being a priestess of the Goddess, it had to be destroyed, and she had to be villified in the same manner the Church villifies most people is seeks to weaken, her island is now synonymous with homosexuality. Are we surprised?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

The reason her island has come to mean homosexual is that it is believed, due to certain of her poems seeming to be love-poems to women, she was believed to have homosexual tendencies, though whether they were intended to be autobiographical or not is uncertain.

[Elfhelm]

There is an equal amount of reference to male objects of affection, and to her own children. Maybe those were lines from plays or "parts" for players.

I don't know why Homer's "pagan" hymns weren't all destroyed along with hers.

I am guessing when I say it was because she was a priestess of the Goddess, most likely Diana (not Aphrodita), as I have heard there was an ancient temple to Diana on Lesbos. There is an archaelogical dig ongoing at the site where the temple was believed to have been. I wrote the project leader a few years ago and asked if he was looking for her poetry. He wrote back that they are really looking for more mundane things, but he wouldn't mind in the least if something substantial turned up.

edit: Diana ... Cybele I should have said, as that is the local name for her.

[Elfhelm]

Anyway, rather than let the topic die on a rabbit trail...

So it is basically a fact, isn't it, that Goddess worship was repressed and went into hiding for a few millenia until recently when tolerant societies are forbidding the kind of brutal repressive tactics that were used in the past.

And it true that the religions of the middle east before the rise of monotheism had both male and female deities.

In fact, other than quibbling about numbers that NOBODY can prove either way, the criticism against this book has been whether or not you think you'll burn in Hell for reading it.

Unless "someone" cares to dispute a particular, provable fact.

Was Jesus' love for Mary of Magdala more than platonic? Were they married? Did they have children? Is this what so many knights swore to defend all those years, their bloodline? If not, why does the Gospel of Phillip say that stuff? And who destroyed the entire middle verses of the Gospel of Mary, and why?

[inked]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

oh maaaaan... I could do this all day, but I can't get paid for it.

OK, I need some facts here. Which Church Fathers actually said that the Gnostics practiced orgiastic rituals? I haven't read The Refutation of all Heresies or Against All Heresies, but I can find the eTexts.

I must point out that I am aware of Bachannalias occurring at the same point in time, but they were pagan rituals, not Gnostic.

PRODICIANS: A sect of Antinomian Gnostics, founded in the second century by Prodicus, a heretic of whom no definite information has come dowel. They claimed,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/ency...tics#highlight

Gnostics. The superiority of the pneumatics is regarded ...literature under Gnostics, consult Neander, Christian Church,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/ency...tics#highlight

Naaseni (extensive)
http://ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-09.htm

Gnostics (general)
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2...tics#highlight
Many Gnostics, following their patriarch, Simon, gave themselves to magic, and introduced their arts into their worship; as the Marcosians did in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Of the outward organization of the Gnostics (with the exception of the Manichaeans, who will be treated separately), we can say little. Their aim was to resolve Christianity into a magnificent speculation; the practical business of organization was foreign to their exclusively intellectual bent. Tertullian charges them with an entire want of order and discipline.82323 They formed, not so much a sect or party, as a multitude of philosophical schools, like the modern Rationalists. Many were unwilling to separate at all from the Catholic church, but assumed in it, as theosophists, the highest spiritual rank. Some were even clothed with ecclesiastical office, as we must no doubt infer from the Apostolic Canons (51 or 50), where it is said, with evident reference to the gloomy, perverse asceticism of the Gnostics: "If a bishop, a priest, or a deacon, or any ecclesiastic abstain from marriage, from flesh, or from wine, not for practice in self-denial, but from disgust,82424 forgetting that God made everything very good, that he made also the male and the female, in fact, even blaspheming the creation;82525 he shall either retract his error, or be deposed and cast out of the church. A layman also shall be treated in like manner." Here we perceive the polemical attitude which the Catholic church was compelled to assume even towards the better Gnostics.

Gnostics (less general)
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2...tics#highlight
The licentious Gnostics, as the Nicolaitans, the Ophites, the Carpocratians, and the Antitactes, in a proud conceit of the exaltation of the spirit above matter, or even on the diabolical principle, that sensuality must be overcome by indulging it, bade defiance to all moral laws, and gave themselves up to the most shameless licentiousness. It is no great thing, said they, according to Clement of Alexandria, to restrain lust; but it is surely a great thing not to be conquered by Iust, when one indulges in it. According to Epiphanius there were Gnostic sects in Egypt, which, starting from a filthy, materialistic pantheism and identifying Christ with the generative powers of nature, practised debauchery as a mode of worship, and after having, as they thought, offered and collected all their strength, blasphemously exclaimed: "I am Christ." From these pools of sensuality and Satanic pride arose the malaria of a vast literature, of which, however, fortunately, nothing more than a few names has come down to us.



Specifics - gnostics

§ 134. Other Gnostic Sects.
The ancient fathers, especially Hippolytus and Epiphanius, mention several other Gnostic sects under various designations.

1. The Docetae or Docetists taught that the body of Christ was not real flesh and blood, but merely a deceptive, transient phantom, and consequently that he did not really suffer and die and rise again. Hippolytus gives an account of the system of this sect. But the name applied as well to most Gnostics, especially to Basilides, Saturninus, Valentinus, Marcion, and the Manichaeans. Docetism was a characteristic feature of the first antichristian errorists whom St. John had in view (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7).91616

2. The name Antitactae or Antitactes, denotes the licentious antinomian Gnostics, rather than the followers of any single master, to whom the term can be traced.91717

3. The Prodicians, so named from their supposed founder, Prodicus, considered themselves the royal family,91818and, in crazy self-conceit, thought themselves above the law, the sabbath, and every form of worship, even above prayer itself, which was becoming only to the ignorant mass. They resembled the Nicolaitans and Antitactae, and were also called Adamites, Barbelitae, Borboriani, Coddiani, Phibionitae, and by other unintelligible names.91919

Almost every form of immorality and lawlessness seems to have been practiced under the sanction of religion by the baser schools of Gnosticism, and the worst errors and organized vices of modern times were anticipated by them. Hence we need not be surprised at the uncompromising opposition of the ancient fathers to this radical corruption and perversion of Christianity.

Mincing through the gnostics, through the gnostics,
While playing a ukelele, (like Tiny Tim!)

[inked]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

And Sappho was a priestess, that's why it's relevant. Her Marriage Ceremony, presumably a large multi-media work involving dance, music, and poetry, was considered one of her greatest pieces. But of course, being a priestess of the Goddess, it had to be destroyed, and she had to be villified in the same manner the Church villifies most people is seeks to weaken, her island is now synonymous with homosexuality. Are we surprised?

Sappho was not alone as a poetess nor lesbian (if she was):
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf0...ppho#highlight

Women were capable of perfections as men:
Chap. XIX.—Women as well as Men Capable of Perfection.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf0...ppho#highlight

Jerome wrote for women and of women writers:
Jeromededicated his commentaries and other writings mostly to those high-born ladies of Rome whom he induced to embrace the ascetic mode of life, as Paula, Eustochium, Marcella, &c.h He received much encouragement from them in his labors;—such was the lively theological interest which prevailed in some female circles at the time. He was, however, censured on this account, and defended himself in the Preface to his Commentary on Zephaniah, tom. vi. 671, by referring to Deborah and Huldah, Judith and Esther, Anna, Elizabeth, and Mary, not forgetting the heathen Sappho, Aspasia, Themista, and the Cornelia Gracchorum, as examples of literary women.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc3...ppho#highlight

YOur statement is refuted by history. Vilified? Deliberately destroyed?

You go far beyond evidence and ignore evidence which doesn't support your beliefs.

[inked]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

Anyway, rather than let the topic die on a rabbit trail...

So it is basically a fact, isn't it, that Goddess worship was repressed and went into hiding for a few millenia until recently when tolerant societies are forbidding the kind of brutal repressive tactics that were used in the past.

And it true that the religions of the middle east before the rise of monotheism had both male and female deities.

In fact, other than quibbling about numbers that NOBODY can prove either way, the criticism against this book has been whether or not you think you'll burn in Hell for reading it.

Unless "someone" cares to dispute a particular, provable fact.

Was Jesus' love for Mary of Magdala more than platonic? Were they married? Did they have children? Is this what so many knights swore to defend all those years, their bloodline? If not, why does the Gospel of Phillip say that stuff? And who destroyed the entire middle verses of the Gospel of Mary, and why?

You need to make a connection between Goddess worship and Sappho, I think, for your argument.

Goddess worship was not suppressed by the Church for at least 313 years because until Constantine recognized Christianity, there was suppression of Christians by pagans. Even after Constantine legalized Christianity, it did not acquire instantaneously the power to suppress. Which is one reason Brown's argument about Constantine and the church is so ludicrous. Additionally, the Goddess was not a solitary figure. There were many goddesses. The conflation into one makes nice anachronistic broad sweeping statements possible a la Brown and yourself, but doesn't fit facts.

Our imposition of structure on the goddesses of the Ancient world is just that, an imposition of scheme for relations devised by the modern mind. That the ancients themselves thought differently is certainly attested by Paul's detractors in Ephesus who unlawfully assembled and chanted "Great is Diana of the Ephesians" for hours. Clearly meaning that the Diana of Ephesus was more powerful than she under other names elsewhere, and, for this amount of denarii, you can get a genuine handcrafted model of her for your home where she will be better positioned to help you.

Those brutal repressive tactics you mention were used in Ephesus and throughout the Roman Empire to suppres Christianity. Lion appetizers and all! Human torches and all! you seem to have a very selective filter on for brutality and history.

As to your assertions about the Gospel of Philip and its claims, how can you accept a late-dated originating item as other than fiction when it is unsupported by other evidence and contradicted by the evidence that exists?
This is perilously close to arguing to prove a negative. You can't refute my arguments from the lack of evidence therefore I must be correct, is not a valid argument. The evidence of absence is not evidence for your assertion of speculation as inevitable fact. This is clearly fiction, if desirable fiction from your point of view.

The absence of the middle versus of Mary's Gospel proves only that they are absent. You can speculate they were deliberately destroyed. I can speculate that she had sloppy librarians. Both are equally valid speculations. Neither are facts.

The best argument that Jesus was married was that nowhere does it say he wasn't, is it? Another argument from lack of evidence and no more valid than any other speculation in the absence of evidence.

NOT that you'd perceive any of this from reading Brown. His speculations "must be valid" but only in the context of a highly imaginative fictional work.

[Elfhelm]

Originally Posted by inked

You need to make a connection between Goddess worship and Sappho, I think, for your argument.

Her poetry.

Originally Posted by inked

Goddess worship was not suppressed by the Church for at least 313 years because until Constantine recognized Christianity, there was suppression of Christians by pagans. Even after Constantine legalized Christianity, it did not acquire instantaneously the power to suppress. Which is one reason Brown's argument about Constantine and the church is so ludicrous.

Saint Athanasius

Originally Posted by inked

Additionally, the Goddess was not a solitary figure. There were many goddesses. The conflation into one makes nice anachronistic broad sweeping statements possible a la Brown and yourself, but doesn't fit facts.

Robert Graves

Originally Posted by inked

Our imposition of structure on the goddesses of the Ancient world is just that, an imposition of scheme for relations devised by the modern mind. That the ancients themselves thought differently is certainly attested by Paul's detractors in Ephesus who unlawfully assembled and chanted "Great is Diana of the Ephesians" for hours. Clearly meaning that the Diana of Ephesus was more powerful than she under other names elsewhere, and, for this amount of denarii, you can get a genuine handcrafted model of her for your home where she will be better positioned to help you.

Clearly... more powerful...? They didn't say "greater", did they. If they said greater you might have a point here.

Originally Posted by inked

Those brutal repressive tactics you mention were used in Ephesus and throughout the Roman Empire to suppres Christianity. Lion appetizers and all! Human torches and all! you seem to have a very selective filter on for brutality and history.

Seems, you say, and I thank you. Such a filter does not exist. I refer to these times as more tolerant, and that means more tolerant of both sides. I can get Jefferson's Inauguation speech, but I think you are aware of it.

Originally Posted by inked

As to your assertions about the Gospel of Philip and its claims, how can you accept a late-dated originating item as other than fiction when it is unsupported by other evidence and contradicted by the evidence that exists?

So you do accept the truth of carbon-dating? A yes or no would be nice on this one.

Secondly, the composition dates of the Synoptic Gospels are speculation. Do you know of any surviving manuscript that has been carbon-dated? We base our estimates on their composition from facts within the documents. For instance, when Timothy is mentioned in Acts, because we know when Timothy joined Paul's travels. But in truth, we don't know if the actual text of Matthew has been altered, and the version we have may not have been the original form.

And dare I mention Q?

Originally Posted by inked

This is perilously close to arguing to prove a negative. You can't refute my arguments from the lack of evidence therefore I must be correct, is not a valid argument. The evidence of absence is not evidence for your assertion of speculation as inevitable fact. This is clearly fiction, if desirable fiction from your point of view.

I agree that such reasoning is sloppy. This is where a real discussion of this book should occur, I think.

(edit) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...lance&n=283155

The book cited here implies that Jesus HAD to be married because he would be considered a freak if he wasn't married by age 30.

The arguments for and against are pretty much the core of this whole issue. Shall we assume Jesus was an Essene, pointing to Philo and Josephus? There are certainly similarities between Essene beliefs and those which Jesus espoused. If so, I should warn you that there happens to be a slippery slope there. It would imply that the Essenes were early proto-Christians, and a lot of very interesting speculation commences... And if he was an Essene with Essene attitudes regarding marriage (not unlike the Shakers) then why was his first miracle performed at a wedding? (end edit)

Originally Posted by inked

The absence of the middle versus of Mary's Gospel proves only that they are absent. You can speculate they were deliberately destroyed. I can speculate that she had sloppy librarians. Both are equally valid speculations. Neither are facts.

There is the fact that the mother of the boys who found the documents in the cave at Nag Hammadi did burn some of the manuscripts. And there is the fact of the actions of Saint Athanasius. And there is the frequent burning of libraries, such as the Library of Alexandria. And there is the smear tactic of claiming that the Gnostics had sex orgies just because they held the belief that a person in a state of grace cannot sin. It's pretty likely that any evidence that might have existed has been hunted down and destroyed. So it's gloating in a way, because as the victor you can dictate the interpretations of historians and supress any work that you disagree with.

What does it hurt for heresies to be out in the world. Isn't it better to have them out there, like Dan Brown's book, so you can argue with them, than to burn them and have people wondering what you're trying to hide?

Originally Posted by inked

The best argument that Jesus was married was that nowhere does it say he wasn't, is it? Another argument from lack of evidence and no more valid than any other speculation in the absence of evidence.

As I said, the "absence of evidence" is, theoretically, due to it's willful destruction.

Originally Posted by inked

NOT that you'd perceive any of this from reading Brown. His speculations "must be valid" but only in the context of a highly imaginative fictional work.

It is just a fiction, after all. I dare say the Christians are getting more mileage out of it than anyone else.

It's not like everyone is running to Mr. Crowley seeking to be indoctrinated into his pseudo-"Gnostic" sex cult. After all, Nag Hammadi has pretty much obliterated Mr. Crowley's faked-up Gnosticism already, hasn't it?

But isn't it true that it's Crowley we all have an issue with, not the Gospel of Phillip or the Gospel of Mary or the Gospel of Judas? Everyone who is vehemently against Dan Brown is really worried about a ressurgence of Crowley's nonsense, don't you agree?

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

The book cited here implies that Jesus HAD to be married because he would be considered a freak if he wasn't married by age 30.




What does it hurt for heresies to be out in the world. Isn't it better to have them out there, like Dan Brown's book, so you can argue with them, than to burn them and have people wondering what you're trying to hide?



It is just a fiction, after all. I dare say the Christians are getting more mileage out of it than anyone else.

Fisrt point: NOT true, being Celibate was not unordinary for Jews. And though Jesus was called Rabbi, it was, as far as I know, because his disciples attached it to him, since he was after all, their "teacher". Secondly, even though most rabbis were married, recongnized rabbis went to seminary and so on, and Christ's education was not the same as theirs, he was NOT a recognized rabbi unless by someone who thought he was. And since he was not, bieng married was not a requirement AT ALL.

Point Two: Heresies hurt when they make an impact on the ignorant innocents who don't know what to think. You can accuse Christianity of this same thing, but it might just be beside the point.

Point Three: Look what "just novels" have done throughout history: nearly the whole romantic movement[s] could be said to have been inspired by Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe's "Faust". All fiction. Fiction makes more impact, because not many people find it worwhile to open and read a "boring" non-fiction book, unless it's extremely pandering (I.e. lots of political propaganda these days, from BOTH sides.)

The arguement that it's "just a novel" is used either as an escape hatch, or as a tool to make the other side look foolish. Both work, but the fact remains that people are only going to do the kind of surface research that Brown himself apperantly did.

I agree actually, that we Christians will be benefiting the most. At least, the traditionalist Christians (Catholics and Orthodox, and Anglicans). It's possible that the Protestants may loose out some in this fight...

[Elfhelm]

Celibacy was an Essene tenet, not an Orthodox one. The support for the idea of Jesus' celibacy hinges on accepting that he was an Essene. (I am personally inclined to believe that, but this week I am "defending" Dan Brown's whatchamacallit just to be contrary.) If we do establish that Jesus was an Essene, based on descriptions of the Essenes that have come down to us by way of Philo and Josephus, then it becomes crucial to know who the Essenes were and what additional information we can find about them to fill in the gaps of the history. And the reason I call this a "slippery slope" is because such an investigation will undoubtedly reveal the source of much of Jesus' teachings. And this will surely lead to questions regarding the divine inspiration that is often touted about his teachings. And after that, the miracles are called into question, and so on down the slope...

Orthodox Jewish Rabbis were married. Unless you can "prove a negative", as inked puts it. The thing you would have to prove is, "just because I can't name one Orthodox Rabbi who wasn't married doesn't mean that there weren't some non-Essene teachers who were celibate". Which is exactly what inked cautions against.

But I insist that someone respond to my point about carbon-dating. The Gospels we have are ALL based on later documents. We have surmised their creation dates based on internal evidence. Why is the carbon-dating of the Gnostic Gospels accepted as fact of when they were written, but the same people oppose the carbon-dating of fossils because it doesn't match the dates in Genesis?

AND... they ask why would an older belief (like Goddess worship) be better when we can get places by plane so newer must be better, but out of the other side of their mouths they are saying that the Gnostic Gospels are newer writings so therefore they must NOT be true. Very confusing. It seems truth will dance to whatever tune I feel like fiddling.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

AND... they ask why would an older belief (like Goddess worship) be better when we can get places by plane so newer must be better, but out of the other side of their mouths they are saying that the Gnostic Gospels are newer writings so therefore they must NOT be true. Very confusing. It seems truth will dance to whatever tune I feel like fiddling.

You'd have to put me on the rack to get me to say that. Newer is not better, and that applies very much to modern lifestyle.

[inked]

Jesus was not an Essene. He certainly may have known of the Essenes. I rather gather many folks knew of them and their ideas. Most people rejected them. But there were lots of Jewish variants at the time.

Jesus did NOT teach new morals or ethics. He said the same platitudes that all the moral teachers taught. No big deal that natural law and revelation yield the same truisms. They have the same source, God.

What Jesus did teach that was new was that the platitudes should be from the heart and not merely legalistic observance. Hence, it was not sufficient to be a dutiful, faithful husband if one had lust in one's heart for some other woman. It was out of the heart that what defiles a person originates ... sin.

The other truly new idea that Jesus taught was that He was YHWH, I AM, Elohim, El Shaddai, and every other understanding of God. Nothing in Judaism prepared for that. Kinda hard to get around that "I and the Father are One"
thing. But then to go on about "I AM the bread of Life come down from Heaven" and "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have Life within you" cost him the bulk of His followers. He turned to the disciples and said, "Will you leave, too?"

"Where shall we go, Lord, you have the words of Life," said Peter.

"Rabbouni," says Mary Magdalene, "My God."

"My Lord and my God," says Thomas.

"Do not cling to me," says Jesus, "I AM ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Go, tell my brothers that I go before them to Galilee."

"I go to prepare a place for you that where I AM you may be also. I and my Father will send the Spirit, the Paraclete, that you may be One as we are One. He in Me and I in you, and the Father in Me."

Nah, nothing new really, except the claim to be God Incarnate.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Elfhelm

Orthodox Jewish Rabbis were married. Unless you can "prove a negative", as inked puts it. The thing you would have to prove is, "just because I can't name one Orthodox Rabbi who wasn't married doesn't mean that there weren't some non-Essene teachers who were celibate". Which is exactly what inked cautions against.

But I insist that someone respond to my point about carbon-dating. The Gospels we have are ALL based on later documents. We have surmised their creation dates based on internal evidence. Why is the carbon-dating of the Gnostic Gospels accepted as fact of when they were written, but the same people oppose the carbon-dating of fossils because it doesn't match the dates in Genesis?

But Elfhelm, there were more groups than just Essenes and Orthodox rabbis back then.

I don't know too much about carbon-dating, except that it isn't that trustworthy, IMO.

Here's a thing about the Gnostic gospels though: pay-attention to what they actually write about the contemporary times of Christ: do they mention the politics of the times? the customs? Or do they merely "rip-off" of what is learnable from the four canonical?

Also this, and an excellently made point in Sandra Miesel and Carl Olson's "The Da Vinci Hoax": the gnostic gospels actually have a more inhuman Jesus than is accused of the Canon Four! As I said somewhere else (and my thread got pasted somewhere else, and I havent been able to find it...), trading the Jesus of the four canonical for the gnostics is going to give you a weird bargain. You look for the human christ? He is in St Luke, St Mark, St Matthew, St John...at the same time is truly Christ God our Saviour.

I might as well say something about the First Council of Nicea, which Brown claims redefined Jesus from simply man to a god.

Arius (and even he didn't dispute Christ's divinity!) was a priest with a lot of influence. It so happened that Constantine's mother and sister were big supporters of Arius, so Constantine was kindof caught in a crossfire...

This is what Arius argued about Christ's divinity: That he was a seperate bieng from God, created. A demi-god. Half Orange, Half Blue, mixed up. But he was still divine.

The other side argued that that if that was the case, Christ would not have authority to save our souls. They believed that he was both FULLY God and FULLY Man. He was an Orange Ball, AND a Blue Ball, not a mix. Because both are possible with God.

As for Constantine's order of "New Bibles", it was nothing more malevolant than getting some into circulation. After all, the printing press was not invented then, and it's not like Christians handed out cartoon tracks, and atheists handed out pamphlets....(that's something Protestants won't understand about "Tradition", but that's another sotry).

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by inked

Jesus was not an Essene. He certainly may have known of the Essenes. I rather gather many folks knew of them and their ideas. Most people rejected them. But there were lots of Jewish variants at the time.

Jesus did NOT teach new morals or ethics. He said the same platitudes that all the moral teachers taught. No big deal that natural law and revelation yield the same truisms. They have the same source, God.

Exactly. It's not as if "Love thy neighbour as thyself" weren't in the Old Testament.

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Jesus did NOT teach new morals or ethics. He said the same platitudes that all the moral teachers taught. No big deal that natural law and revelation yield the same truisms. They have the same source, God.

What Jesus did teach that was new was that the platitudes should be from the heart and not merely legalistic observance. Hence, it was not sufficient to be a dutiful, faithful husband if one had lust in one's heart for some other woman. It was out of the heart that what defiles a person originates ... sin.

Could you please give an example of one of the pre-Jesus "moral teachers" who taught that legalistic observances were what mattered, not whether the platitudes came from the heart?

Certainly not the Buddha, Confucius, Mencius, Socrates, Amos, Micah, Hillel, Mahavira...

A moral teacher who doesn't believe that what is in the heart matters would seem to be a bit of an oxymoron, no?